10 what, points? That’s statistically insignificant on the SAT. |
English classes are always useful. |
I see montgomery blair smcs program with an average SAT above 1530. But to be fair, it seems to be a magnet within a magnet so the they seem to be using more objective standards than TJ used to. The class size seems to be about 100 so I guess you can afford to be pickier. If you filter for more merit, you end up getting more merit. Is it a small group of students within the |
Since smcs class is a handpicked 100, it's only fair to compare their average SAT to the average of top 100 students of TJ class, which likely is closer to 1570. In 2024, there were 165 TJ students on the NMSF list, much more than the blair smcs's 41 count. Within that, 18 from TJ were named finalists, where as blair had 3. The 4.74 gpa from blair smcs equates to about 4.2 gpa from TJ, since all TJ honors courses give just a +0.5 bump, where as blair provides +1.0 bump for plenty of basic honors courses. Comparing the rigor taken on by students, blair had just 7 students attempt the AP Physics C: E&M, 4 signup for AP US History, and 28 sign up for AP Chem. At TJ, it's not just the top of the class, but well over two to three hundred students enroll in each of these AP classes and exams. |
The education at TJ is the best in VA. As a parent, I would like my daughter to get a B grade rather than get an A grade at a common base high school. |
I am a big critic of the new admissions system but to be fair the top half of TJ is still very competitive. |
TJ draws from all of FCPS and several other counties. Blair is just a subsection of MCPS. Your reasoning is flawed. Bottom line is Blair's average is higher and 10 pts at that end of the curve is statistically significant. |
Me too, I wish they'd stop discriminating against the rich and let us go back to being able to buy a spot. |
#backdoorKaren |
Blair average GPA is based on mediocre courses with higher credit bump, but low AP participation in rigorous courses |
The top half represents merit, while the bottom half supports diversity chart? |
Sure, but we can improve the merit significantly by re-instituting a standardized test so that we get the brightest 1.5% kids from each of the middle schools. |
The idea of selecting the top 1.5% is a promising approach that aims to enhance representation and indirectly diversity. However, using the same merit test across all schools brings to light some uncomfortable truths that ultimately place the responsibility back on FCPS. If the same math or english or science test is given to everyone, it most likely would show that the highest score from a lower-performing school is actually lower than the average score from a higher-performing school. This clearly would indicate that FCPS needs to improve the overall quality of education at the lower-performing schools. Instead of addressing this issue, it’s easier for FCPS to frame the situation as a matter of racial injustice, use skin color based politics, and blame individuals at the top school for the lack of admission from students at the bottom school. |
In general, the lower performing schools in FCPS have higher funding, lower student teacher ratios, the best administrators, the best teachers, lots of direct instruction, extra help, tutoring, etc. Go find someone else to waggle your finger at. |
That is not quite right. TJ has the same teachers and cirriculum as any other fcps high school. and a B at TJ would tank your daughters chances to getting admission at UVA, VT, W&M |